


Two of Cups (The Reversed Remix)

by Odaigahara



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and Violence, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Episode: Putting Others First - Selfishness v. Selflessness Redux | Sanders Sides, Remix, Unsympathetic Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26539528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odaigahara/pseuds/Odaigahara
Summary: Janus keeps his eyes down when the footsteps return.He knows them, the click of Roman's boots and the warmth he carries with him, the stage-light brightness that makes his teeth sparkle when he smiles- he knows Roman, or thought he did. Once he spent hours upon hours studying him, grilling Virgil on the details of their interactions until the other Side turned up his headphones and refused to take them off."It's about time you showed up," he says. "If you'll recall, last time you werequitelate."*Or:Once, when Thomas was very young, Janus looked at Virgil and saw someonedifferentfor the first time.
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42
Collections: Remix Revival 2020 Madness, TSS Fanworks Collective





	Two of Cups (The Reversed Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ten Of Swords](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24574237) by [LostyK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostyK/pseuds/LostyK). 
  * In response to a prompt by [LostyK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostyK/pseuds/LostyK) in the [remixmadness2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2020) collection. 



> TW's at end of chapter.
> 
> *
> 
>  _two of cups_ , **reversed** : self-love, breakups, disharmony, distrust

Once, when Thomas was very young, Janus looked at Virgil and saw someone _different_ for the first time.

It's the first memory he has, the first one truly marked as his: dark nervous eyes and a round, pale face, and a presence rapidly swelling with fear. Janus felt a similar change, the cunning in him rising to the fore, hindbrain terror noticeably absent.

A cell, splitting in half. A mind, generating complexities. A potentiality becoming actuality, stepping over the line into something tangible, something real.

Thomas told his first lie, not because he was scared but because he wanted something.

Thomas hid under the covers, not because he wanted to pretend something wasn't there but because he was sure it _was_.

Self-Preservation, too young for long-term memory, fell to pieces.

And then there were two.

*

Janus keeps his eyes down when the footsteps return.

He knows them, the click of Roman's boots and the warmth he carries with him, the stage-light brightness that makes his teeth sparkle when he smiles- he knows Roman, or thought he did. Once he spent hours upon hours studying him, grilling Virgil on the details of their interactions until the other Side turned up his headphones and refused to take them off.

His breaths are so shallow they don't move him, and still the blades through his back cut through him with each inhale. His face is wet with tears, and the floor is wet with blood. He can't move, but the imperative strikes him anyway, insistent as the ticking of a clock: _stop him find him help him halt him._ Help Thomas by keeping the not-Roman away, because he can't be the real Roman. Help Roman by stopping whatever is happening to him that made him hurt Janus.

There is an old, desiccated fear within him, stirring up from memories he hasn't thought of in years. He wants to pray that it was the same Roman who hurt him, that he simply misjudged him all that time. He wants to beg for it not to be.

The footsteps peter out, sending the hall into silence. Janus doesn't move.

Something clatters to the ground. "Deceit?"

The voice is at a loss. No lies, nothing to go off of but the shock, and Janus is in a shock of his own. He doesn't answer, but the steps draw closer anyway; if he looks up he might see the blow coming, so he does.

Roman. Pale and horrified, rose petals dusting his shoulders, sword fallen to the ground behind him. Janus's mind feels very distant.

"It's about time you showed up," he says. "If you'll recall, last time you were quite late."

Now is the cue for Roman to grab him by the jaw, to cut out his tongue or stab him again or do something else to worsen the pain, to keep the villain on his knees. Janus is braced for it. He's _been_ crying, and he's prepared if it's not what he thinks is happening, if Roman really does just hate him _that much-_

Roman swallows. "I know," he says, inching forward. Janus trembles and wonders if he should feel relieved. "I won't make the same mistakes again."

It reeks of truth and belief, but that's irrelevant.

Janus knows it's a lie.

*

Once, when Thomas was very young- but not so young that he didn't know when to lie, or what to fear- Creativity came to Deceit's door with a question.

"Am I bad?" he blurted out, paper crinkling in his hand. He was covered in marker and glitter glue, eyes bright with power and tears. He smelled like Play-Doh.

It's strange, the things one remembers.

"Why would you be bad?" Janus asked. He couldn't fathom the question. His own function was following rules and avoiding punishment, getting what Thomas wanted and away from what he didn't. Creativity might as well have asked him whether it was better to think in orange or blue.

Creativity held out the paper. He'd drawn a stick figure boy with unsettlingly realistic eyes, contorted with electricity. "I keep thinking about dying," he said, and Janus felt the first flicker of unease. "I want to think about dying, about every way a person could die, everything that can happen to make you bloody and broken and not-around and going to Heaven or going to Hell-"

"That's not creative," Janus tried to say, and then the straw that broke the camel's back:

"I want to see Thomas bleed," said Creativity, wild-eyed and crying. His mouth twitched into a faint, uncertain smile. "All the heroes have to bleed before they win their quests. I want to see the _bone_."

*

Janus flinches when Roman gets too close. The motion cuts through him, makes him whimper, shameful- but when Roman lurches forward he presses his lips shut, tries to paste on a neutral expression. Conciliatory, where fighting does nothing. An adder with its fangs drawn.

"Who did this to you?" Roman asks. Janus isn't looking at him, but he knows he'll see on his face that he already knows the answer. Who _else_ . "Oh, Poseidon's _trident_ , I'm so sorry. Can you stand?"

He's in front of him. Janus can see the outline of the sword at his hip, already teleported back to its scabbard. His mouth runs dry. Kneeling, trying to stand before the next blow and feeling the sword through him, trapping him because if he moved a muscle, if he so much as twitched-

A Prince's job is to protect his kingdom from villains.

The swords disappear, vanished fast as air; Janus doubles over with a cry and hugs his middle, six arms wrapping his torso to stop the blood.

"Janus?" Roman asks, voice high with horror, and he could so easily pin him again, so effortlessly bring him even lower. It wouldn't tax him. Gravity is on his side, and the snake is cursed to crawl in the dirt.

 _For my sins_ , Janus thinks, and says before he can stop himself, "I thought you liked me on my knees."

It doesn't come out as mockery. He sounds tentative, appeasing, a dog baring its belly. Contempt for himself is sour in his mouth.

Roman kneels in front of him, shoulders shaking. Janus forces in a breath and meets his eyes, evens his expression. A smile is too much to ask, but he manages a grimace. Charming. "I'm not going to hurt you," Roman says, wrecked. "Janus, please, I- you don't have to be scared of me. I'm trying to help you."

"You were shaking before you entered this room," Janus says, and Roman flinches. "You're _totally_ not already weak. How are you going to help me?" Roman opens his mouth, and Janus cuts in, "You're angry with me. Don't you remember?"

Roman shakes his head, pale spots high on his cheeks. "I'm not upset with you," he says helplessly, and Janus laughs.

"That's all right," he says, meaning nothing of the sort. "You weren't last time, either."

*

The second memory is a blur of black and red: a room gone dark and pregnant with fear, terror beating in his ribcage and someone else screaming and a biting, wretched certainty that he was about to die- that he was about to cease. Because something in him had shrieked _too similar_ , had cried that the mind abhorred redundancy, had urged him to _kill his double_.

Virgil struck first. Somewhere, faint on his skin, Janus still has the scars.

It was a long time before he saw the other Side again.

He still wonders if his fangs left Virgil with scars of his own.

*

Roman can't lift him. He tries, but Janus slips from his grasp, hits the ground so hard his vision spikes red. He stifles his scream, baring teeth when Roman stoops to try again, and Creativity- he is _still_ Creativity, somehow they both are, all _three of them-_ draws back, white costume soaked scarlet. 

"I don't understand why I can't just lift you," Roman snaps, and now his face is going red. It lacks the edge of his previous frustration, the rage of failure; this Roman doesn't feel like he could kill anything.

Janus feels cold. "Roman," he says, and the other Side looks at him, again almost brought to tears. "You know the origins of Shakespeare's Hamlet?"

"Of course," Roman says, offended, but it's not enough. Janus can already tell. "It's based on a Scandinavian legend, wherein the character Amleth goes through many of the trials later given to Hamlet, including having to feign madness, having his mother marry his father's murderer who is coincidentally also his brother- I always found that rather creepy, honestly, could he not marry _anyone_ else- and getting to marry two different women-"

"Hamlet avenged his father with poison and a rapier," Janus says. "How did Amleth do it?"

Roman says, slow, "He drugged them and impaled them, and burned the palace down around their heads."

"Yes," Janus says, and it's a struggle to breathe. Every breath is a shock of pain, each just as fresh as the last; he's been torn raw, left to cool. There's blood in his throat. "The older tales are always more violent, aren't they."

"What are you implying?" asks the Roman who trembles at the sight of blood, the half of him that kept his kindness. The Disney prince. The _sanitized_ version.

Breaks happen along existing faults. Roman, cheerfully violent and deathly insecure, focused on life-or-death and romance in the same breath- there were so many faults to choose from. And the other Roman, the not-Roman, _enjoys_ watching his enemies squirm.

"You need to get out of here," Janus says, and for once it isn't a struggle not to lie. "Now, Roman. Before he comes back." He swallows back copper and bile. "We _both_ know he’s coming back."

*

Once, when Thomas was very young, Janus was afraid.

It wasn't a new feeling, far from it, but the intensity was novel. He hadn't been so afraid since he was small- since Virgil was still his enemy.

He didn't think of himself as Self-Preservation back then. He was Lying, Get-What-He-Wants, sometimes Distrust. He had trouble seeing himself in the mirror, wavering between too many other faces. His favorite hobby was inserting himself between the other Sides to see if they noticed it was him.

Still the image of Thomas, cut to the bone, seared him deep with terror. He couldn't get it out of his mind. No denial quieted the thought, no assurance convinced him it was only a passing fancy. Friendship, a distant concept to Selfish Thought, held no sway over him. Not then, in the dawning years. Not when they were all half-formed.

Janus had no concept of right or wrong. He had _stop him find him halt him kill him_ , and like a rattlesnake he had to strike first.

Creativity never saw him coming.

After, he remembers dragging Remus off his brother before he could get at the throat- remembers the lighter half lunging at his back, the pain of teeth sunk into muscle, the shrieking and sobbing and desperate screaming of something rent in two, a pair of minds sprung from the same source and aching with the need to destroy the competition.

Roman ran. Remus kept attacking, too maddened to stop, impervious to venom or words or any paltry agonies. Then there was blood all over the floor, and Janus was too weak to move, to do anything but wait for the final blow.

And then the danger was past, Roman back to chase his weakened twin away, and Janus followed the bad one into the Dark, because _someone_ had to.

And then there were two.

*

"I'm not leaving," Roman insists, gripping the sword like it's new to him. "Not while I can't bring you with me. It's dishonorable. He'll kill you."

"He wants to kill you," Janus says, snarling, desperate. "You both remember the last Split, Roman, I know you do. It's too soon. He won't rest until one of you is dead." He can't breathe, can barely move, but the swords are out. He can drag himself away. "You're Creativity. You're the Ego. Don't you think it's more important that you survive? That you stand between him and Thomas, not him and me?”

"No," Roman says, and Janus sucks in a breath, closes his eyes.

The words settle into him like liquid nitrogen, freeze his breath in his lungs. "No," he repeats, soft.

"I can't leave you," the prince insists. "Thomas isn't more important, not while you're already hurt- don't you dare ask me to leave you. Either we're both getting out of here, or neither of us are."

The other Roman went for Thomas first. This Roman believes Janus is more important. This Roman isn't hearing kill your double like a drumbeat in his ears, but his counterpart is- and his counterpart is the one going to Thomas first, the one who will hide the split that, unsoftened by childhood, could be so very damaging.

Janus is Selfish Thought, is Lying, is Get-What-He-Wants. He's Self-Preservation, not for himself but for Thomas. He knows that Sides have to be strong- that they have to keep some things to themselves, to let Thomas live his life, to think of Thomas first.

Janus loved the original Creativity, too.

"All right," he says, and the grief is as distant as his heartbeat, fading in his chest. He's lost a lot of blood. "I won't press you to leave." He won't offer strategies, either, won't snap insults until this Roman leaves in disgust, won't beg him to leave and recover his strength. He'll just sit here and wait, blood draining from his wounds, until he dies or the other Roman comes back to finish the job. To _kill his double._

"Thank you," says the prince, and smiles at him in relief. Janus wishes he could hate him. "I swear I'll get you out of this. Whatever our differences, we'll resolve them in time."

"Thank you," Janus echoes, forcing a smile. It's the least he can give. "I'm sure you'll win."

_Lie._

Janus thinks, as something far inside him howls, _and then there was one._

**Author's Note:**

> TW: implied character death, implied harm to children, impalement, blood loss


End file.
